Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 9: Clutch of Constables, When in Rome, Tied Up in Tinsel

‘The AC says it’ll be nicer for you to be here with her.’

‘That be damned! What? Me? Needle my wife? Give her the old one-two treatment if she doesn’t provide all the answers? Nicer?’

‘It won’t,’ Fox said, ‘be as bad as that now, will it?’

‘I can’t tell you how much I dislike having her mixed up in any of our shows. I came here to get her out of it. Not to take on a bloody homicide job.’

‘I know that. It’s a natural reaction,’ Mr Fox said. ‘Both of you being what you are.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by that.’

‘Suppose you didn’t take the case, Mr Alleyn. What’s the drill on that one? Somebody else comes up from the Yard and you hand him the file. And is his face red! He goes ahead and you clear out leaving Mrs Alleyn here to get through the routine as best she can.’

‘You know damn’ well that’s grotesque.’

‘Well, Mr Alleyn, the alternative’s not to your fancy either, is it?’

‘If you put it like that the only thing that remains for me to do is to retire in a hurry and to hell with the pension.’

‘Oh, now! Come, come!’

‘All right. All right. I’m unreasonable under this heading and we both know it.’

Fox mildly contemplated his superior officer. ‘I can see it’s awkward,’ he said. ‘It’s not what we’d choose. You’re thinking about her position and how it’ll appear to others and what say the Press get on to it, I daresay. But if you ask me it won’t be so bad. It’s only until the inquest.’

‘And in the meantime what’s the form? We’ve issued orders that they’re all to stay in that damned boat tonight, one of them almost certainly being the Rickerby-Carrick’s murderer and just possibly the toughest proposition in homicide on either side of the Atlantic. I can’t withdraw my wife and insist on keeping the others there. Well, can I? Can I?’

‘It might be awkward,’ said Fox. ‘But you could.’

They fell silent and as people do when they come to a blank wall in a conversation, stared vaguely about them. A lark sang, a faint breeze lifted the long grass and in the excavation below the wapentake, sand and gravel fell with a whisper of sound from the grassy overhang.

‘That’s very dangerous,’ Fox said absently. ‘That place. Kids might get in there. If they interfered with those props, anything could happen.’ He stood up, eased his legs and looked down at The River. It was masked by a rising mist.

The Zodiac was moored for the night some distance above Ramsdyke Lock. The passengers were having their dinner, Mr Tillottson and his sergeant being provided for at an extra table. Alleyn had had a moment or two with Troy and had suggested that she might slip away and join them if an opportunity presented itself. If, however, she could not do so without attracting a lot of attention she was to go early to bed and lock her door. He would come to her later and she was to unlock it to nobody else. To which she had replied: ‘Well, naturally,’ and he had said she knew damned well what he meant and they had broken into highly inappropriate laughter. He and Fox had then walked up to the wapentake where at least they were able to converse above a mutter.

‘There is,’ Alleyn said, ‘a vacant cabin, of course. Now.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I tell you what, Fox. We’ll have a word with the Skipper and take it over. We’ll search and we’ll need a warrant.’

‘I picked one up on my way from the beak at Tollardwark. He didn’t altogether see it but changed his mind when I talked about the Foljambe connection.’

‘As well he might. One of us could doss down in the cabin for the night if there’s any chance of a bit of kip which is not likely. It’d be a safety measure.’

‘You,’ said Fox, ‘if it suits. I’ve dumped a homicide bag at the Ramsdyke Arms.’

‘Tillottson kept his head and had the cabin locked. He says it’s full of junk. We’ll get the key off him. Look who’s here.’

It was Troy, coming into the field from Dyke Way by the top gate. Alleyn thought: ‘I wonder how rare it is for a man’s heart to behave as mine does at the unexpected sight of his wife.’

Fox said: ‘I’ll nip along to the pub, shall I, and settle for my room and bring back your kit and something to eat. Then you can relieve Tillottson and start on the cabin. Will I ring the Yard and get the boys sent up?’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Yes. Better do that. Thank you, Br’er Fox.’ By ‘the boys’ Br’er Fox meant Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, fingerprint and photograph experts, who normally worked with Alleyn.

‘We’ll need a patrol,’ Alleyn said, ‘along The River from Tollard Lock to where she was found and we’ll have to make a complete and no doubt fruitless search of the tow-path and surroundings. You’d better get on to that, Fox. Take the Sergeant with you. Particular attention to the moorings at Crossdyke and the area round Ramsdyke weir.’

‘Right, I’ll be off, then.’

He started up the hill towards Troy looking, as always, exactly what he was. An incongruous figure was Mr Fox in that still medieval landscape. They met and spoke and Fox moved on to the gate.

Alleyn watched Troy come down the hill and went out of the wapentake to meet her.

‘They’ve all gone ashore,’ she said, ‘I think to talk about me. Except Dr Natouche who’s putting finishing touches to his map. They’re sitting in a huddle in the middle-distance of the view that inspired my original remark about Constables. I expect you must push on with routine mustn’t you? What haven’t I told you that you ought to know? Should I fill you in, as Miss Hewson would say, on some of the details?’

‘Yes, darling, fill me in, do. I’ll ask questions, shall I? It might be quickest. And you add anything – anything at all – that you think might be, however remotely, to the point. Shall we go?’

‘Fire ahead,’ said Troy.

During this process Troy’s answers became more and more staccato and her face grew progressively whiter. Alleyn watched her with an attentiveness that she wondered if she dreaded and knew that she loved. She answered his final question and said in a voice that sounded shrilly in her own ears: ‘There. Now you know as much as I do. See.’

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Tell me.’

‘She scratched on my door,’ Troy said. ‘And when I opened it she’d gone away. She wanted to tell me something and I let Mr Lazenby rescue me because I had a migraine and because she was such a bore. She was unhappy and who can tell what might have been the outcome if I’d let her confide? Who can tell that?’

‘I think I can. I don’t believe – and I promise you this – I don’t believe it would have made the smallest difference to what happened to her. And I’ll promise you as well, that if it turns out otherwise I shall say so.’

‘I can’t forgive myself.’

‘Yes, you can. Is one never to run away from a bore for fear she’ll be murdered?’

‘Oh Rory.’

‘All right, darling. I know. And I tell you what – I’m glad you had your migraine and I’m bloody glad she didn’t talk to you. Now, then. Better?’

‘A bit.’

‘Good. One more question. That junk shop in Tollardwark where you encountered the Hewsons. Did you notice the name of the street?’

‘I think it was Ferry Lane.’

‘You wouldn’t know the name of the shop?’

‘No,’ Troy said doubtfully. ‘It was so dark. I don’t think I saw. But – wait a bit – yes: on a very dilapidated little sign in Dr Natouche’s torchlight. “Jno. Bagg: Licensed Dealer”.’

‘Good. And it was there they made their haul?’

‘That’s right. They went back there from Longminster. Yesterday.’